


Strange Company

by TheFifthBiscuit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Demisexual Harry Potter, Demisexuality, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, HP: EWE, M/M, Multi, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-War, References to Depression, Roommates, Slash, Slow Burn, Talking, forced cohabitation, fucking shitloads of dialogue, seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2018-10-03 09:13:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10241345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFifthBiscuit/pseuds/TheFifthBiscuit
Summary: At his post-war trial Draco calls in a debt, and Harry gets an unexpected lodger. (not abandoned, but planning to complete before resuming posting so might be a while)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my brainstorming team, and to PersephoneParkinson for all the support and talking me down from my crisis of confidence. I'm lucky to know such magical women. ❤

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm popping my Drarry cherry with this fic. Not sure how long it's going to turn out, since it's taking more words than I anticipated to tell the story. Updates sporadic due to health problems.

It was precisely noon when the doorbell rang in number 12 Grimmauld Place. Harry didn't think he'd ever stop appreciating the peace and quiet of his hallway now that the portrait of Mrs Black was gone. They'd had to rip out and replace the wall in the end to remove it, but it had been worth it. The bell was no longer the loud clanking one it had been, either, instead replaced by the light trilling of a completely ordinary, Dursley-worthy doorbell. Electricity at Grimmauld Place. Walburga probably spun in her grave every time it rang.

He’d been hesitant about moving in at first. The house was a connection to Sirius, but to Sirius it had been a reminder of some of his worst memories. Even though the Order had cleared out most of the dark and dangerous things, it was still a dreary, dated place and full of Black family possessions he had no interest in keeping. So he’d made some enquiries, and hired a magical house clearance company. It was a fairly lucrative business to be in, apparently; elderly witches and wizards passing on often left a wealth of magical surprises for their unsuspecting heirs, after all. Then afterwards the muggle builders had come, to replaster and do the wiring. Harry had very little interest in furniture shopping, but Luna and Ginny had been more than willing to help, and a house as Black as it’s name had finally become a cosy, if slightly quirky, home.

His one regret was installing a phone line, and subsequently giving Cecil the number.

He’d been expecting this particular visitor, so he flicked the kettle on and went upstairs to let her in. The tall woman on the doorstep held out her hand to him, grinning. Her short, curly hair was barely restrained from her face with a headband, and she wore a tailored blazer and vivid floral trousers. For a moment, Harry was uncertain. This was almost certainly the right woman, but he hadn’t exactly been expecting her to be loudly dressed and cheerful.

“Mrs Zabini?” he asked.

“Ms.” she corrected. “We have an appointment?”

“Yes. We do, yes. I was just, er-" 

“-Expecting a trophy wife, even after all of our correspondence?” she asked. Harry flushed. Much to his relief, she smiled. “You of all people should know not to believe everything you read in the papers, Mr Potter.” she scolded.

“I should. I’m sorry.” he said, examining a very interesting swirl in the wood of his door. He’d made assumptions based on what he’d heard in the Slug Club, ones that he really should have abandoned in the face of a mounting wall of evidence that he was a terrible judge of character. He’d still been expecting some sort of femme fatale with pointy red fingernails. Ms Zabini was beautiful, yes, but in a very natural way. She had the same brown eyes and good bone structure as her son, and an aura of genuine warmth bubbled out of her and gave a youthful light to her face. He pushed the door open further to let her inside and made his peace offering. “Would you like a cup of tea? The kettle’s just boiled.”

“Tea would be fantastic, thank you.” she said graciously, and followed him into the house and down the polkadot corridor towards the kitchen.

“I thought we could use the table in here,” he told her, getting two mugs out of the cupboard and adding tea bags to them. “If that’s ok with you?”

He turned to find that Ms Zabini was already seated, pulling several documents out of an improbably small bag.

“I won’t take up too much of your time,” she told him, “I’m just here today to show you a copy of your written testimony, refresh your memory a bit, run through what happens at the hearing if you need it, but I’m thinking after giving evidence at so many trials...” Ms Zabini set a small file to one side and began slipping the rest of it back inside her bag. “You’ve probably picked up on how these things go.” she finished with a wry smile. Harry carried over the tray he'd loaded with two steaming mugs and his teapot, sugar bowl and milk jug (he wasn't sure how long this would take, but a refill seemed likely) and sat down opposite her. He slid across the sugar bowl for her to help herself, and she popped two spoonfuls in before stirring vigorously. After adding a little milk, Harry cupped his mug with both hands and took a careful sip. The tip of his tongue was burnt for his troubles.

She slid the folder over to him and he took a hand off his mug to flip through it, mostly to appease her. It was all words he’d read before, when he put his signature to it; words describing things he’d lived through and memories that would be dragged out of him next week all over again. He didn’t need to familiarise himself with them. Draco Malfoy’s face watching Charity Burbage dangle over his dining table, his wand hand shaking at the top of the Astronomy Tower, his white knuckles clinging to Harry’s t-shirt as they escaped the fiendfyre… these were all things burned into his mind. Pinning it all down into so many shapes on paper seemed inadequate, somehow.

“Is there anything I should be expecting them to ask, Ms Zabini?” he asked, watching as she picked up and inspected the teapot. The body of it was adorned in tiny star shapes that swirled with warm colours; rich reds, a terracotta type colour and an earthy yellow, to pronounce to the world that the water was hot. As it cooled, they would relax into blue, green and purple hues before fading to black once back to room temperature. It was one of his favourites of Luna’s purchases.

“Mmm, it’s my professional opinion that a witness should be ready for anything,” she said, placing it carefully back on the table. She blew on her tea before taking a sip, seemingly unfazed by the scorching temperature. “But realistically, it should be quite straightforward; we can corroborate most of your statement with other witness testimony or evidence. The thing is, they're probably going to dig into your past rivalry with Draco in order to attack his character, and to get a reaction from you. It’s important that you don’t get dragged into an argument. I hear,” she said, waving her mug at him in accusation, “That this is something you might have trouble with.”

It had only been once. Twice at most, and he'd never _actually_ been held in contempt. Harry opened his mouth to argue, then thought better of it and shrugged. Ms Zabini took the folder back and flipped to the back where she'd made some notes.

“The other thing I wanted to warn you about is the visions.” she said, and grimaced. “Even for a wizard court, those parts are pretty unorthodox. _Very_ unorthodox actually, and even with all the cleaning up at the Ministry in the past two years, the Wizengamot is still full of very old wizards who don't like new ideas.” she threw her hands up and rolled her eyes. “Believe me, I’ve tried.  The point is, we can’t even supply proof of a link between your mind and Lord Voldemort’s, let alone anything you claim happened there.” she tapped her fingers on the table impatiently, obviously irked by information she couldn’t carefully pin down to be examined like a butterfly in a case. Her letters had been extremely thorough; another reason he’d expected someone more polished than the lively, animated woman sitting across from him. Of course, there was a good chance she was a serial husband-murderer with the intelligence and legal skills to get away with it, but you could see that it wasn’t simply looks that had lured them to her in the first place. How this was the woman who’d produced Blaise Zabini was kind of unfathomable.

“The visions are going to be the place you need to go into the most detail.” she told him, circling a few paragraphs of his statement with her quill. “So brush up. It's also where we’re hanging most of our case, since that’s the most crucial evidence of how Mr Malfoy was treated by You-Know-Who, so it's important that you don't…”

“Fuck it up?” Harry supplied.

She shrugged. “I would have put it more delicately, but that's the essence of it, yes.” she took another sip of her tea. It took another half hour to hash out all of the finer points, much to Harry’s dismay. Portia, as he was instructed to call her, wanted to go over all of the questions she’d be asking him, how he should stand, what he should wear. Muggle clothes, not robes. Don’t fidget. Don’t avoid eye contact with Malfoy, but don’t stare at him either. He was almost beginning to regret doing all this for Draco Malfoy of all people when it finally came to an end.

“I’ll need you there at 9am, sharp. By which I mean both punctual and sharply dressed.” Portia told him, passing a pointed gaze over his faded jeans and crumpled shirt. She stood. “Well, that should do it unless you have any other questions?”

“Do you think he has a good chance?” Harry asked as he walked her to the door. She paused, her hand sliding on the strap of her bag in what he thought might be a nervous gesture. She didn’t seem like a woman who was often nervous, but Harry supposed anyone would be if it was their job to defend Death Eaters in the current political climate. The Wizarding World was hungry for retribution.

“Well, having you as a witness will certainly help. Not only are you the Boy Who Lived, but your previous animosity with Draco might actually go in our favour; you have every reason to think the worst of him, yet here you are defending him. That will count for something.” She adjusted her bag on her shoulder, and Harry opened the door to let her out. “I’m confident that we can avoid the Kiss, and hopefully since he’s so young we can whittle it down to a relatively short stint in Azkaban.”

“But you still think he’ll go to prison?” Harry asked, “Even with my statement?”

“I work magic not miracles, Harry.” she sighed. “I’d think about casting a Fidelius on the place, by the way,” she said, “The press will go crazy when they hear you’re defending him; if you want any privacy at all I’d start protecting the place now. See you next week, Harry.” and with a smile and a nod, she disapparated.

Harry went back inside to finish his cup of tea and firecall Ron and Hermione about a Fidelius Charm. Portia’s mug was half full of cold tea, which kind of lent weight to the whole serial killer theory in Harry’s opinion; not finishing a cup of tea was a travesty.

 

********************

 

It was somewhere around 7am when Harry gave up on sleep and wandered down to the kitchen. He splashed a few handfuls of water on his face and then filled a glass from the tap. It was the worst night’s sleep he’d had in a long time. He felt restless and niggly, and no position he tried to sleep in stayed comfortable for long.

Malfoy was going to prison. He'd known it was a possibility all along but the fact that not even his lawyer thought he could avoid Azkaban had really nailed the point home.  Harry hadn't give it much thought when Ms Zabini first got in touch to ask him to be a witness. In the two years since the war ended it seemed like every lawyer wanted to have the Chosen One as a witness, one more court date hasn't seemed like a big deal even if it was for the defence for once. Even if it was Malfoy. Harry didn't bear any childhood grudges now, and all he'd been asked for was the facts. The plan had simply been to tell the truth and let the Wizengamot figure out what to do with it. Faced with the reality of a prison sentence, though, Harry felt a gnawing in the pit of his stomach that wouldn't let him rest.

Knowing what Azkaban was, what it did did to people who were locked away there, did he think that Draco Malfoy deserved that? For being young and scared and following his family?

There wasn't much Harry could do about it and he'd promised Ron and Hermione that this wouldn't get out of hand when he'd told them about testifying. That he wouldn't fixate on it.

_“It's just that, well, you know how you get about Malfoy,” Hermione had told him. “We're concerned.” Ron had only shrugged when he'd asked what that was supposed to mean._

_“You remember sixth year, mate.”_

That didn't stop him from sitting in his living room all morning, racking his brain for some small detail he might have overlooked. It wasn't until a letter arrived at lunchtime that he turned a thought to his own problems.

 

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_I hope your leave of absence is proving restful. I am, however, keen to ensure that your training does not fall too far behind the rest of your cohort and with that in mind, could you please supply some estimation of when we might expect you back, so that we can plan your learning accordingly._

_Yours, Tiresias Bell_

_Auror Department: Head of Training_

They were still not taking him seriously, then.

Harry had been off work for over a month now, and with each day he became more and more sure that he didn’t want to go back. Joining the Auror Department had seemed like a good idea at first. It was what people were expecting, after all, and defending against the Dark Arts had gone pretty well so far. The reality was that the hours were long, the paperwork was never ending, and after the arrest was made your case was at the mercy of a bizarre and antiquated justice system that failed all too often. Even when it didn't, successfully sending someone to have their actual _soul_ eaten by dementors… He hadn’t been daft enough to say it to anyone except for Hermione, but that wasn’t quite what he’d class as success. He’d come to realise that actually, he didn’t think that ‘avoiding being killed by Dark wizards’ was really a good basis for a career, or a life for that matter. That he had defeated Voldemort because he was literally the only person who could, and that just maybe he could let someone else be responsible for saving the world now, and not feel too guilty about it.

How to word this to his instructor, however, was proving difficult. His latest attempt at telling Tiresias that he didn’t think he wanted to be an Auror had led to being sent on compassionate leave for his “war trauma” and “stress”, but he’d known all along that it wasn’t that. He was finally free, from destiny and design, and his first act had been to try to shove himself back inside the Chosen One box he’d always hated. He was free to be whatever he wanted to be, and maybe that was the problem. He had no bloody clue what it was that he wanted.

 _Just not this._ He thought, as he set pen to parchment. He actually managed a smile when the thought of Ginny popped into his mind. They’d come to a similar realisation, after all, and if Harry still had no clue what he was doing, at least Luna made Ginny happy. Harry’s friendship with the youngest Weasley was stronger than ever, as well. The day they’d finally sat down and agreed to call it quits had been a relief to them both; no blame or arguments, just sad smiles and a hug goodbye. It would never have worked, but he thought they both sort of wished it could have. It would have been very… neat and tidy, being all one big happy Weasley family, but Harry didn’t think he could ever have lived up to the hero she’d had a crush on at eleven, even if Ginny didn’t fancy Luna and Harry hadn’t had the epiphany that maybe the whole Cho disaster had been more about Cedric for both of them than he’d cared to admit before. He rubbed his temple with his right hand, no doubt getting ink on his face as he did, and jotted a quick reply. His head was too jumbled to write anything fancy, and he hoped a direct approach might finally get his point across.

_Mr Bell,_

_Sadly I do not intend to return._ _Please consider this my letter of resignation._

_Harry James Potter_

 

The reply was swift, and infuriating.

 

_My Dear Boy,_

_Obviously you are still under a great deal of stress._ _I’m sorry to have put you under pressure, take another few weeks to think about it. I_ _shall patiently await your owl._

 _Sincerely,_ _Tiresias Bell_

 

Harry thought about his answer while he cleaned the bathroom. He marinated over it while he put a stew on for tea. He pondered it as he paced the patio. Finally, he stormed over to his desk and scribbled a hasty note.

 

_Dear Arsehole,_

_I’m not your sodding poster boy._ _Stuff your job._

_Harry._

  
He propped the note up against a paperweight shaped like a crumple-horned snorkack, collapsed into his chair, and set to work finding polite words to express the same sentiment, despite the temptation to owl his first draft.


	2. Chapter 2

On the day of the trial, Harry woke up on the couch. Portia Zabini’s notes lay scattered over him like a makeshift blanket and his glasses were so askew they were practically vertical. He fought his way out from the flurry of parchment, and peered blearily up at his living room clock. 8:20am. _Shit._

His pockets were empty, so he dug around the couch cushions for his wand, finding three sickles and a long-lost spoon along the way. It was half past eight already so it was with great regret that he had to settle for a few cleaning spells in place of a shower, something he usually avoided at all cost. It just didn't feel the same as a good wash. Well, there was that and the embarrassing way that somehow, no matter how carefully he cast them, they always left him smelling faintly of pine despite in theory being scentless. It felt like he was wearing a car air freshener as a necklace. Oh. He grabbed a piece of parchment from the couch, found his ink pot, and jotted the words “air freshener = necklace?” down; it could just be the tiredness talking but it might actually be a good idea for a Christmas present for Luna.

Harry bought his court suit the autumn after the Battle. He'd spent that summer travelling. If “travelling” is what you call cooping yourself up in Travelodges with an awful lot of Muggle videotapes and trying to forget that the Wizarding world and the bloody Daily Prophet exist. But eventually, duty had called, and he couldn't deny that the simple black suit with the skinny tie had been a _little_ influenced by Reservoir Dogs. If at the time he had sometimes finished the look off with sunglasses that the grey weather didn't justify, well, not many wizards were likely to recognise the homage, and there were far more amusing attempts at muggle fashion to be seen in the courtroom. His Tarantino phase had passed, for the most part, but the suit had stayed.

Somewhere around doing up the tie was when it hit home that this was really happening, and the nerves kicked in. He'd grown used to trial proceedings, of course, but that wasn't the same as feeling comfortable. It was also the first time he'd been out in public since his resignation from Auror training, so the day was shaping up to be full of uncomfortable questions and unwanted intrusions long after the trial was over. Harry met his own eyes in the mirror that hung where That Dreadful Portrait, as Hermione called it, had once been. He straightened his tie and made minute adjustments to the collar. He took a deep breath, and glanced at his watch. 8:40. They should be here any-

Right on time, the doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of two much-wanted distractions. Hermione had her arms around him and all of the breath out of his lungs within seconds of him opening the door, and he returned the hug with a wheezy "Hey, Hermione."

“So they finally let you go, eh? We saw it in the Prophet this morning.” Ron lounged against the door frame and gave him a crooked smile, even more freckled than usual and hair sun-bleached to almost a strawberry blond in places. All that Quidditch practice suited him, and Harry almost didn’t have the heart to tease him later about the Falcons’ disastrous match against the Chudley Cannons last week, in which Ron had been too starstruck to get out of the way of his own team’s Seeker, losing them the Snitch, and with it the match. Almost.

“Already? I only got the paperwork this morning,” Harry winced. “How bad was it?”

“Well, we’re back to ‘Is Harry Potter Crazy?’ again…”

Releasing him, Hermione immediately began fussing over his hair, in an apparent bid to change the subject. "Really Harry, you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards."

“You should see the hedge.” Harry mumbled, but he let her try. He’d find out soon enough, most likely. Ron and Hermione weren't testifying in person, but they'd submitted written statements that would be read. Portia thought that having all three of them on the stand wouldn't do Draco any favours; she wanted to avoid a ‘saviour circus’, whatever that meant. They were there for him. “I fell asleep on the couch.” he admitted, against his better judgement.

“Oh, Harry.” Hermione shook her head. “I worry about you here on your own.”

“He can take care of himself,” Ron said evenly, but he too was frowning. “At least it’s all over after today, mate.” he said.

“Yeah.” Harry agreed, having the sudden feeling that he’d swallowed a bezoar. After today, Malfoy would be in Azkaban. For less time than he would have been, but it still felt… wrong, somehow. “Do you ever think… that it could have been us?” he asked.

“You mean if You-Know-Who had won?” Hermione asked, eyes wide.

“No, if… if we’d had different lives. Different families. If we’d grown up with… with Death Eaters, instead of Order members.” Harry sighed. Hermione was giving him that concerned look again, and Ron only snorted at the question.

“Nope.” he answered lightly. “Because we’re not twats."

“Ronald!”

“Do you think it’s true that all men are doomed to marry their mother?” Ron asked Harry in a stage whisper.

Hermione sniffed. “We’re not married _yet_ Ron, I’d be careful if I were you.”

“I’m keeping out of this.” Harry grinned, shrugging on his suit jacket. He pulled a banana out of the pocket. “See, Hermione? Breakfast. I can absolutely take care of myself. Let’s go.”

The others went ahead while Harry locked the door. It was a gorgeous May afternoon, just warm enough with a pleasant breeze. The windowboxes Ginny had installed on the sash windows were in full bloom, delicate petals of bright white, and a red kind that almost matched the glossy front door. Harry had no idea what type of flower they were or quite how they were still alive as he kept forgetting to water them, but he had to admit they made the house look good. Fresh.

In the past two years, Harry had testified about horrible crimes. He'd been at the trial of Fenrir Greyback, and heard Lavender’s voice tremble as she described his attack on her. He'd watched Neville speak at the trial of Rodolphus Lestrange, before the man had been sentenced to the Kiss. He'd described the night Sirius had died multiple times. Was it cowardice that he was so afraid to speak of his own transgressions? The image of Malfoy bleeding out in a bathroom, of being frozen with terror? He knew he it was going to come up. Harry had never wanted to be The Boy Who Lived, but he didn't particularly want to be known as The Unstable Auror Dropout Who Nearly Murdered His Classmate either. Malfoy was not the only one facing his mistakes today.

“It's a bit late for second thoughts now.” He scolded himself, then he took a deep breath of fragrant air and Disapparated before he could change his mind.

 

********************

 

Portia Zabini was waiting for them in the lobby with a copy of the Prophet. Her flowing black court robes looked strange on her after the burst of colour she’d been wearing last week, but the miniature fuchsia top hat bedecked with aqua coloured feathers did somewhat mitigate the effect.

“You might have warned me,” she said, brandishing the newspaper. “That you were planning on doing the prosecution’s job for them and thoroughly discrediting yourself.”

“This isn’t Harry’s fault-” Hermione began, but Harry tuned out as he took the Prophet out of Portia’s hands. An old picture of himself blinked sheepishly from the front page, accompanied by a shot of Mr Bell hurrying out of the ministry, flanked by reporters.

 

**THE BOY WHO QUIT?**

_Speculation abounds as the Department for Magical Law Enforcement confirms that Harry Potter has left the Auror training programme. A spokesperson for the Ministry, speaking at a press conference last night for the Auror recruitment drive, refused to comment on the manner of his departure but insisted the DMLE remains on_ ** _“the best of terms”_** _with the Chosen One._

 _The Prophet understands that Mr Potter has been on a leave of absence from the Department due to stress for the past month. A Prophet representative has attempted to contact Mr Potter for comment, but he has not been seen in public for some days now and the privacy spells on his residence appear to have been renewed and upgraded. Ronald Wesley, fledgling Keeper for the Falmouth Falcons and a long-time friend of the Chosen One, told our reporters that Mr Potter is_ ** _“Taking some time for himself”_** _and_ ** _“doesn’t need a flock of bl***y Prophet owls surrounding his house right now”_** _, in his usual display of tact and diplomacy._

_An anonymous Ministry source has reached out to us about Harry Potter’s abrupt exit from Auror training. Our source was unable to comment on the exact events that led to Mr Potter’s departure, but pointed to his mental health as a possible contributing factor._

_The Auror training programme is known for its rigor, and those who wish to train as Aurors undergo mental examinations, as well as physical, practical and written ones. Our source indicates that a Ministry evaluator expressed concerns from the start that Mr Potter was “volatile” and “reckless”, which came as no surprise to some former classmates The Prophet spoke to…_

 

Harry only resisted the temptation to throw the newspaper on the floor and Incendio it by imagining the headlines _that_ would give them to run with in the evening edition. _Harry Potter Burns Own Effigy In Ministry Lobby,_ going by the dramatic nature of the current article. “For fuck’s sake.” he said.

“I know,” Ron sighed. “It’s a disgrace. Professional Quidditch player, helped save the world, and they still can’t get my name right.”

It wasn't even that funny, but somehow it popped the bubble of tension that had been building all week, and him and Ron were leaning on each other laughing.

Hermione and Portia abruptly stopped their heated discussion and turned to look at them in perfect, exasperated unison.

“Well, at least you two find this funny.” Portia said, drumming her fingers on her arm. “Let's just hope it doesn't come down to that…” she mumbled.

“Down to what?” Harry asked, frowning.

“Down to me having to defend _your_ reputation as well as Mr Malfoy’s.” she said, fidgeting with her bag. “Now then, are you ready to head down to the courtroom?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

The trial itself didn’t begin for another hour, and the journey down to the courtrooms was thankfully free of reporters. They left Ron and Hermione at the courtroom door, and Portia escorted Harry into an antechamber that had been set aside for the defense’s use, where another witness waited in a chair next to a small end table with tea and biscuits set out, sipping delicately at a cup of tea and looking for all the world like it was her living room. The two DMLE wizards who stood guard seemed as content as she was to pretend that they weren’t there; they remained silent and statuesque as Harry and Portia walked in.

Harry had known that Narcissa was also a witness, but he hadn’t exactly expected to be sipping tea with her for an hour before the trial. It was almost strange to see her without her husband; Lucius’ trial had been one of the first to be conducted, given his escape from Azkaban and the wealth of witnesses placing him at the attack at the World Cup, the ministry, and several other events. Harry had not defended that man, but he had also declined to incriminate him further. He had been sentenced to life in Azkaban.

“Er… Hello, Mrs Malfoy.” he said.

“Harry,” she said, setting her cup aside and rising to greet him. She gave a swift air kiss to each of his cheeks, and gripped him gently by the shoulders. Flustered by such a warm reception, he could only stare. “I think, all things considered, that you may call me Narcissa,” she told him, and he nodded. Releasing him, she offered him a small smile. “Please, sit.

“Thanks… Narcissa.” Harry said, seating himself in a striped armchair on the other side of the table and helping himself to a ginger biscuit.

“I want you to know that I’m grateful for all that you’ve done for our family, Harry.” Narcissa said. Her voice remained even and formal, but there was a tension to her jaw and eyes. “I’m not sure if you realise quite the danger that Draco was in when… the war ended,” she shivered, and Harry didn’t need to ask why. Crumbling stone, the flash of curses and smell of burning flashed in the back of his mind. Mrs Malfoy, frantic, screaming for her son. His biscuit snapped in two under the pressure of his fingers. “But I believe he would no more be here today without your actions than you would be today without mine.” The significance of her look was not lost on him,and he nodded.

“I’m here to do what I can today.”

“Thank you for that,” She hesitated. “I can assure you that our own debts will not be forgotten, Harry Potter.” she told him, and he had the bizarre feeling he had unwittingly entered some kind of pact with the Malfoys, Merlin help him.

 

********************

 

Somehow, Portia had managed to keep the news that Harry was taking the stand relatively private, so while there was a strong media presence ( _Youngest Death Eater Stands Trial!_ had also made the front page today) and there was a lot of public interest in the case, there weren’t actually that many spectators turning out in person for the trials any more, after two years of them.

Harry, Mr Ollivander, and Mrs Malfoy sat to one side of the courtroom, with Professor Slughorn, an uncomfortable-looking Katie Bell, and Mr Burke (flanked by Davies and Taylor from the Auror Department- a successful raid by Arthur’s department had led to him testifying at several Death Eater trials in exchange for a lighter sentence) on the other. A large and uncomfortable chair sat in the centre, waiting for Malfoy.

There were murmurs and flashes from the gallery, no doubt from reporters trying to get a good shot of Harry Potter, but Harry’s eyes were trained on the door. He gripped the arms of his chair tightly in an attempt not to fidget. The wizards and witches of the Wizengamot had just taken their seats when they brought Malfoy in.

Harry felt the Dementor before he saw it; as the temperature in the room dropped and his breath became visible, his chest tightened and his fingernails dug into wood. It lingered in the doorway only for a moment before one of the aurors guarding Burke collected Malfoy and sent it away with a gesture, but Harry he could still feel his shirt sticking to the cold sweat that had broken out on him the second the door had opened, and his ears were ringing. He _hated_ his sensitivity to the creatures, but apparently he wasn't the only one.

Draco Malfoy was a sight for sore eyes. His hair was longer than Harry had ever seen it, and hung thin and limp in his face. His robes were slightly too large and he sagged against the Auror escorting him in relief as soon as the Dementor’s presence left the room, before finally lifting his head. Grey eyes blinked, gaining clarity. His head turned to survey the room, giving Harry a view of sunken eyes and a chin somehow grown even more pointy despite the blond growth there that was somewhere between stubble and a beard. Malfoy had lost weight that he had never really had going spare in the first place, and he looked like he hadn't slept for the past two years. Once in the chair his eyes scanned the room, flicking from Ron and Hermione, to Portia, and on to his mother, before settling on Harry. His lips pressed together in an unreadable expression, and Harry thought he saw him mutter “Potter” under his breath. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being… measured, somehow, and broke his gaze away.

“Ahem,” Tiberius Ogden stood, straightening his plum robes and gesturing for silence. “As Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, I declare that the trial of Draco Malfoy has begun. Mr Malfoy is charged with,” he picked up the reading glasses he wore on a chain around his neck and peered through the lenses at a sheet of parchment, rattling off and extensive list of charges. Finally, he turned to Portia.

“Your opening statement, please, Ms Zabini?”

“My client wishes to give his own statement.” she replied, and at his nod Malfoy stood.

“Thank you, Chief Warlock. I want to emphasise today that any crimes I committed, I did so under great duress, and with even greater regret. However,” Malfoy tucked his hands behind his back and faced the Wizengamot squarely, but Harry's chair was set back slightly, and from there he could see him wringing them together. “I would like to beg your indulgence to settle a… civil matter, first.”

“I don't think you're taking this very seriously, young man-” Ogden sputtered, but Malfoy cut him off, voice echoing around the chamber.

“On the 6th of May 1997, Harry James Potter cast the _sectumsempra_ curse, lacerating my neck and stomach.” Gasps broke out across the courtroom, and there were more flashes from the press gallery. Harry steeled himself, wondering what the hell Malfoy was playing at. “I don't think he knew what the curse would do, but without the intervention of Severus Snape, I would have bled out and died.”

Mr Ogden fished through his notes, frowning. “And you wish to press criminal charges against Mr Potter, who is here today defending you?”

Malfoy smiled, and it was all teeth, like a predator that has caught its prey. He played the room fantastically, pausing dramatically in all the right places, with the courtroom hanging on his every word. Harry had no idea what the bastard was up to, but it couldn't be good. “No, but I believe under the Ancient laws, attempted murder is grounds to claim a life debt.”

Harry's blood ran cold. “What?”

Malfoy turned his eyes to him, and there was something almost pleading in his expression despite his words.

“Do you admit that you owe me a debt, or would you prefer to have your very own trial?” He asked. Harry's mind raced, thinking of his conversation with Mrs Malfoy, of Malfoy’s description of the incident. He had never even apologised, let alone made amends, really, and maybe Malfoy actually knew what he was doing.  _I'm here to do what I can_ , he'd said.

“I- I admit it.” he found himself saying. He cleared his throat. “I owe you a life debt.”

“Are you quite finished now, Mr Malfoy?” Ogden was looking entirely flummoxed by the unexpected turn the trial had taken. Malfoy looked like Ron when he was ten moves ahead of someone in a game of chess and knew that he'd already won.

“Actually, no.” he said. “The debt is acknowledged, and I seek payment.” The words were crisp and formal and well-rehearsed. Harry leapt to his feet.

“What do you think you're playing at, Malfoy?” He demanded.

“It’s done, Mr Potter.” Portia was at his side, looking at him imploringly.

“You're in on this too?”

“You've acknowledged the debt, you have to pay it now,” she said. Quietly, she added “Trust me, you won't be harmed.”

“And what is your price, Mr Malfoy?” Ogden asked, frowning. Hardly anyone breathed as Malfoy turned to regard him, an expression of distaste twisting his sly mouth.

“I claim guest-right in the house of Harry James Potter.”

Ron’s face was pale and serious in the public gallery. Even more disturbingly, Hermione looked absolutely fascinated.

“Well, this is most irregular…” stuttered Ogden, as the rest of the Wizengamot muttered frantically amongst themselves. “I don't think the Ancient Laws have been invoked in quite this way in about…”

“A hundred and fifty years.” Portia said matter-of-factly, approaching his podium with a heavy tome. “If I might show you a few passages?”

Not quite able to believe what was happening, Harry turned to Malfoy, who was still looking tired and sickly pale, but also all too pleased with himself.

“Alright Malfoy, feel free to call in for tea and cakes when you're out of Azkaban.” he said. Malfoy shuddered, but he held himself straighter than before, a trace of familiar arrogance in the set of his shoulders.

“That wasn't quite what I had in mind, actually.” he said.

There was quite a buzz going around the members of the Wizengamot, with several of them crowding around Portia and Ogden to get a look at her book. The words _binding clause_ and _clever_ and _witnessed acknowledgement_ drifted across the room, doing very little to clear things up for Harry. A cluster of older men and women on the fringes of the group were gathered around an ear trumpet, listening intently.

“What’s going on, Malfoy?” There was actually a slight hesitation before the other wizard answered.

“None of this is my first choice, believe me, but I can’t go to Azkaban.” he sighed, tucking rebellious blond strands away behind his ear. “I just can’t. Formally acknowledging a life debt in front of a member of the Wizengamot gives me the right to demand certain types of payment. It’s a _very_ old law. By demanding guest-right, I’ve claimed the right to stay, safely and unmolested," -Malfoy, being Malfoy, paused to smirk- "as a guest in your home, for any consecutive period up to a year and a day.” he said, and Harry had the distinct impression that he was quoting something word for word. “Which at least buys me some time.”

There was just no way. A year and a day with Malfoy under his roof? Mr Ogden cleared his throat, and Harry turned to him, waiting expectantly for common sense and reason to return. This _couldn’t_ be happening.

“Well um, that seems to be all in order.”

“What?” Harry demanded. “You can’t be serious, this is-”

“If you’ll let me finish, Mr Potter?” Mr Ogden said. Harry swallowed and sat down, arms folded. “Thank you. Mr Malfoy, we are more than happy to let you proceed with your claim, but it may have escaped your notice that _you_ are the one on trial today, not Mr Potter. Once the proceedings are over and you’ve completed any sentence you might receive, you will of course be free to pursue this, if you so desire. But this is not a… what did you call it, Eva?” a tawny-haired witch in plum robes looking significantly younger than most of the other members leaned over to whisper in his ear. “An ‘escape from prison for free card’, whatever that may be.” he finished.

Malfoy was laughing. He was _actually_ laughing. Harry should never have agreed to this. What now? “I was sort of hoping you’d say that.” he said, and turned back to Harry. “That year and a day starts now, Potter.” he said, then “Smudge!”

_Crack_

A house elf appeared, and Malfoy grabbed it’s hand. “Grimmauld place, Smudge!” he called. The Aurors and ministry officials surged forwards, there was a _crack_ and a cry of ‘ _vestigium!'_ from one of the Aurors, and Draco Malfoy was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of imaginary legal-ese in this chapter to set the whole thing up, but I've tried to avoid too much of an info-dump. Long story short is that Harry has been played like a fiddle, but I'll go into more detail as the story progresses.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Persephone "pep talk" Parkinson for telling me things aren't awful.
> 
> Been a rough two weeks with a gigantic face abscess that won't go away so this is later than I wanted to update. Sorry for the delay!

_"Mr Potter! Did you know that Mr Malfoy was planning this?"_

_"Harry! Hey, Harry! Is it true that you left the Ministry to go on tour with Stubby Boardman?"_

_"Would you describe yourself as having a mental breakdown?"_

_"What is your relationship with Mr Malfoy?"_

_"Was that your house elf?"_

_"Will you be living with Draco Malfoy?"_

_"Were you fired from the Auror Department?"_

As he was led from the courtroom by two Aurors, past the crowd of reporters waving Quick Quotes Quills, Harry decided that Draco Malfoy had a _lot_ to answer for. They led him to the ante-chamber he'd waited in before the trial, along with Portia, Ron and Hermione, before taking up watch at the doors. "Mr Ogden will be with you shortly." one informed him.

"You've got yourself in a right mess this time, Harry." Ron said, shaking his head.

"You mean Malfoy has," Harry said, slumping into a chair. "What was I supposed to do?"

"Oh, Harry." said Hermione.

"Will you stop _oh Harry_ -ing me!" he snapped. "I'm not a, a- I saved the world once, you know!"

"Yes, Harry, I was there." she answered calmly. "And I will stop it when you stop being such a _Harry_ about things, alright?" Hermione sighed. "You're shockingly naive sometimes. Acknowledging a life debt in front of the Wizengamot isn't something you do lightly."

"I could have killed him," Harry pointed out.

"Yeah, but you saved him in the Room of Requirement," Ron took a seat next to him. "You could have claimed the debt was paid."

"And what about when he didn't identify me to Bellatrix Lestrange? Or when his mum told Voldemort I was dead?" Harry said. "Like it or not, I do owe them."

"This is true," Portia said. "He was ready to use those arguments if needed."

Harry had almost forgotten about her. "Was this the plan all along? Why didn't you just _ask_?"

"Well, it was a long shot." Portia shrugged. "We didn't think you'd play along if you knew about it in advance, and we couldn't be sure that they'd hear Draco out."

“So asking me to testify, the statements, coming to my house, that was all some elaborate ruse to get me to admit that I owed him in front of the Wizengamot?” Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. “Telling me that he was going to Azkaban, Narcissa bloody Malfoy sitting in here waiting for me?”

Portia didn’t even look remotely ashamed. “As I said, it might not have worked. We needed to plan for both outcomes. I like you Harry, but you are not my client. You'd do well to remember that.” she shrugged.

Harry was spared from having to come up with some sort of answer to that by the arrival of Mr Ogden, and Kingsley. Portia slipped out of the door behind them with a wave and a mouthed _‘good luck’_.

“Please tell me you caught him and we can finish the trial and go home.”

“Unfortunately not, Harry. It appears that Draco Malfoy is at Grimmauld Place.” Kingsley said, as Mr Ogden helped himself to a handful of custard creams.

“Appears?” asked Hermione.

“Well, one of our Aurors managed to get a _vistigium_ on him. A tracking spell that should tell us where he is. The spell is still active, but it isn't giving a location presently. Presumably because Harry’s house is under a Fidelius Charm.”

“Oh, well that's simple.” Harry said. “Ron’s my secret keeper, he can-”

“-I'm terribly sorry, young man, but that won't help.” Ogden cut in, between biscuits. “They could have intercepted Mr Malfoy if he'd made any stops along the way; to collect some of his belongings from Malfoy Manor, for example, but it appears he was clever enough to go straight there.”

“Well, he's always been that at least.” Ron muttered. “Sneaky little ferret-face.”

Harry stifled a smile at the memory. “So you can't just…” he made a vague shoo-ing motion with his hands. “extract him?”

“Mr Potter, you freely admitted a life debt in front of the entire Wizengamot. There's some very old and powerful magic at work here that we simply can't interfere with. Until Mr Malfoy leaves your hospitality or the year has passed, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do.” Mr Ogden stood, pocketing the last of his biscuits. “You'll have to excuse me, I'm afraid, duty calls elsewhere. The Minister will answer any further questions you have. It's been a pleasure Mr Potter.”

Harry stood to shake his hand and thank him, though for what he really wasn't sure.

“So I really am stuck with Malfoy in my house for a year?” he asked one Ogden had left, turning to Kingsley. The tall man sipped thoughtfully at his cup of tea.

“We’ll be looking into it, Harry, but as it stands the only way he’s leaving any sooner is by his own choice. Which might not actually be that unlikely; you do have a history of antagonising each other, after all.” Kingsley put his cup down and fixed him with a long, level stare. “If you chose to, you could probably make his stay so intolerable that he leaves, and we can arrest him. As Minister for Magic, I'm obliged to request that you do all that you can to help us apprehend a servant of Lord Voldemort. As a former Order member, I have to say that I don't know Mr Malfoy like you do, but I do know that Albus thought there was hope for the boy. We had a safe house prepared for him during your sixth year, but Severus never managed to… Anyway, a year is a long time for circumstances to change, buying the boy some time might make a difference to his future.”

“What do you think Harry should do?” Hermione asked. Kingsley only chucked.

“Consider carefully.” he told her, before turning back to Harry. “You’re an adult now Harry, you’ve more than proven that, and this is your decision.”

“Thanks, Kingsley. I think.” Harry didn’t feel much like an adult right at that moment, what with finding himself manipulated, jobless, and with absolutely no idea what he was doing with his life.

“I was pleased, you know,” Kingsley said, “When Tiresias told me you’d left the Auror Department.”

“You- you were?” Harry asked. He’d thought that Kingsley would think becoming an Auror was the Right Thing, since he used to be one. “Why?”

“Your entire childhood was sacrificed to keep the rest of us safe, Harry,” Kingsley said, his deep voice slow and serious, lending weight to every word. “I think you more than anyone deserve the chance to live your adulthood in peace, with all of your limbs intact. I’ve been hoping fervently that you would take it.”

There was silence in the room for a moment as those words sank in. Finally, Ron spoke. “They picked the right man for the job with you, Kings." 

Kingsley nodded, and a wizard in navy robes entered the room, whispering a few words in the Minister’s ear. He sighed. “I’m afraid there’s a delicate situation upstairs I have to see to. Take care, Harry. Ron, Hermione. Keep him out of trouble.” he gestured for the Aurors guarding the doors to leave. “They’re free to go when they’re ready.”

“So, what now?” Hermione asked, once the room had fallen silent again. Ron cast a speculative eye over the remains of the refreshment table, before picking up a Rich Tea and taking a bite.

“Ffnoffing he can do, they ffaid,” he shrugged, mouth full of biscuit. He swallowed. “Don’t tell Heather, whatever you do. She’ll kill me if she hears I’ve been eating refined sugar.”

Harry wouldn’t go near the Falmouth Falcons’ coach if he were clad head to toe in dragonhide and armed with a ten-foot broom, but he politely didn’t say so.

“I have some books at home that might be useful, we can grab some research snacks and…”

“Hermione, give the man a break,” Ron interrupted. “He needs to go and talk to Malfoy before springing into research mode, see what’s-”

“Actually,” Harry said, “I think I’m going to the pub.”

  


********************

 

As it turned out, Hermione was not terribly impressed with his extremely mature decision to avoid the subject for as long as possible, and stormed off home to dig out her books on Wizarding law. So it was that Ron alone joined him for a pub lunch, and without her corrective influence it was followed by a great many pints, and some ill-advised shots.

“What is this, exactly?” Harry asked, holding up the deceptively strong amber ale for inspection.

“A wobblobub.” Ron slurred. He tried again. “A wobber- a wob- a pint, alright. And a bloody nice one at that.” he took another swig.

“I just can’t believe it, you know,” Harry said, moving his draughts piece. “You think that life, that things are a bit shit, but it will all sort of come together. And then you remember that you’re Harry Potter.”

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make Potter.” Ron mumbled.

This was a little too profound for the sheer volume of alcohol Harry had consumed. “What?”

“It’s in one of Hermione’s books.” Ron admitted with a shrug, before pulling off a complicated maneuver where he jumped over several of Harry’s pieces in succession, finishing by landing on Harry’s side of the board. “Crown me.”

“This is the last time I play strategy games with you.” Harry said, stacking a piece on top of the one Ron had moved.

“No.” Ron said.

“No what?”

Ron leaned over the table to give him a devious grin that was uncannily reminiscent of certain brothers of his. “You’ve got to sing it.”

“No way,” Harry said. “Not again, this is your third King this game.”

“Sing it or it’s your round again.”

“Oh, fine…” Harry looked around the room to see if anyone was a still watching. A grizzled older man sipping a daiquiri with a tiny umbrella in it was watching them dubiously over his newspaper, but that was about it. “Weasley is our king…”

“Can’t hear you, mate!” Ron said, cupping his ear.

“Weasley is our king,” Harry sang a little louder, grinning a little at the absurdity of the situation. That, and Ron joining in whilst making dramatic conducting gestures. “He always wins at chess and draughts, Weasley is our king…”

“Ah, music to my ears.” said Ron. “And to think I have your new roommate to thank for this moment of glory.”

“He is not my roommate.” Harry winced. He couldn’t avoid the subject forever, he supposed. “We would have to be mates, to be roommates, which we are not. There will be no mating.” he declared. Ron snorted. “No matey-ness.” he amended, horrified. “And none of that other thing either.”

“So it’s not about Malfoy, then? The gay thing?” Ron said.

“The gay thing?” Harry asked, capturing one of Ron’s pieces. That still left him miserably outnumbered. “Really? That’s what we’re calling the news of my homom- my homosexuality?”

“Mate, do you know how many pints I’ve had? Because I don’t.” Ron said. “You’ll have to forgive me if my cog-nit-ive functions are not at their best.”

“No, it is not about Malfoy.” Harry said, pulling a face. “Eurgh. God, no. It’s about me. I’m not gay _for_ anyone, I’m just gay.”

“Oh, good.” Ron said. “Hermione said not to worry about that, but I was thinking of, you know, when you were stalking him a bit, and-”

“I was not stalking him!” Harry protested. “He was plotting to kill Dumbledore and let Death Eaters into the school.”

“Well, you’ve got to admit it was a bit unlikely.” Ron said. “But yeah, fair play, maybe we should have believed you.” he stretched, pulling one lanky arm behind his head, and then the other. “So, did you rearrange with Cecil?” he asked.

“Rearrange what?”

“Oh, bugger,” Ron said, “I didn’t tell you, did I, with everything that’s gone on. Cecil couldn’t find your house, what with the fidelius, so he rang me yesterday. I gave him the address, and he said something about calling in this afternoon.”

“So Cecil is…”

“At Grimmauld Place, where Malfoy is.” Ron confirmed. Harry was on his feet quicker than his brain could keep up with, and he leaned on Ron’s chair for support.

“Crab your goat.” he said.  


********************

 

Neither of them were in a fit state to apparate, so it was somewhere around teatime when their taxi pulled up to the curb outside of Grimmauld Place. They disembarked into a misty drizzle, the kind that is barely felt as it seeps into clothing, and found Cecil sitting on the front steps, wearing a large trench coat and sheltering under an umbrella.

“Harry, you’d better get your wand out,” he said, “You’ve been invaded by a blond maniac. He says he lives there now and you know about it, but I don’t trust his chin. He might be one of those wizzo reporters.”

“For the last time, I’m a wizard not a ‘wizzo’,” Malfoy said, opening the door. He frowned at Harry, then nodded his head towards Cecil. “Is this yours? He’s been here knocking and arguing with me for the best part of an hour. I thought he might be an undercover Auror at first. Then he started calling me a wizzo and spouting a load of muggle nonsense, and I realised nobody at the ministry has the imagination for a cover story quite like this.”

“Well if you’re going to make up silly nicknames for us, it’s about time we had one for you,” Cecil mumbled.

“He’s sort of a stray,” Harry said, which was true. He'd given the sandy-haired man a cup of tea once, and he'd just sort of kept coming back until he was part of the furniture. He wouldn't usually have said it in front of him though, he was a sensitive soul. “He's a friend.” He added, belatedly.

“Merlin’s balls, Potter, you're wasted. It's four in the afternoon!”

“Yeah, well it's been a stressful day,” Harry said, wrongfooted by the sheer weirdness of Draco Malfoy answering his own door to him. “You might know something about that.”

Malfoy’s mouth was pressed into a thin, tense line and he was obviously holding himself back from some retort. He gave Harry a long, evaluating stare, grey eyes taking him in from head to toe before fixing on his face. Harry had the feeling he'd been assessed and found severely lacking. “Yes, well, you'd better come in out of the rain so we can talk about it.” he said, his polite tone brittle around his contemptuous expression. He pushed the glossy red front door open wider.

Harry couldn’t believe the sheer cheek of him. “For fuck’s sake, Malfoy, you can’t invite me into my own house.”

“Oh, right, so you’d rather do this out in the rain, then?” Malfoy sneered. “Anyway, I wouldn’t have to if you’d hadn’t buggered off to get bladdered. I’ve been here for hours. Where are your manners?”

“Manners?” Harry gawped. “Seriously, you want to talk about manners? I think I must have left them back in the courtroom, along with my bloody dignity!” He passed a hand through his hair, dislodging some of the droplets that had gathered there.

“Your dignity? You think I want to come crawling to the house of the _Chosen One_ , like some weak little sycophant?” His eyes flicked to Ron, and to Cecil. “Look,” he said, his tone dropping to become something that was almost reasonable. “If I must debase myself, can it at least be in private?”

Somewhere between opening his mouth and saying that he’d bring who he wanted into his own damn house, Harry actually took a proper look at him. Malfoy looked like shit. The dark bruised-looking skin under his eyes was a stark contrast to how pale he was, and his hair and stubble were alarming on someone who had taken such care with his appearance before. His shoulders were hunched and there was a tension to him that suggested he was trying very hard to keep things civil. “Ron, maybe you could walk Cecil home.”

“What?” Ron said.

“He doesn’t want to, see?” Cecil sighed. “I don’t want to be a burden. I’ll go home. Alone. In the rain. I hope I don’t catch a cold.” he stood and made his way down the street, arms held listlessly at his sides.

“You’ve got an umbrella, Ces…” Ron groaned, but he staggered after him, mouthing ‘you owe me’ to Harry as Cecil began his diatribe on waiting for hours in the rain, and his delicate constitution.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow.

“He’s a poet,” Harry said, by way of explanation. “And a bit of an eeyore.”

“Yes, well. I hope it’s not catching.” Malfoy said with a puzzled expression, and led him into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who are curious about what Ron was trying to pronounce in the pub, they were drinking Wobbly Bob. Not sure if it's available outside the UK, but it's lovely; smooth as anything and deceptively strong. Hence the 'wobbly', I imagine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you dragonjess for looking over this chapter for me, and for believing in this story. <3

There was something oddly final about shutting the front door. The latch clicked into place, and so did the previously vague and distant concept that he was stuck with Malfoy of all people living in his house for a year. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door, trying to have just five more seconds where he didn’t have to deal with the ridiculous situation he was in.

Malfoy coughed, and Harry finally turned away from the door. He thought the taxi ride had sobered him somewhat, but he leaned against the wall just in case, so as not to sway. Malfoy was facing him but not quite meeting his eyes, his pale hands trembling slightly as they flitted at his side. He didn’t seem to know quite what to do with them; Malfoy smoothed his robes, went to slip them into his pockets, and rested them briefly on his hips before clasping them behind his back.

“So, you probably have some questions.” he said.

“...” Harry honestly couldn’t even form words at first. He sort of just wanted to cut out all the chatter and punch him in the face, but if they really had to tolerate each other for an entire year, that probably wasn’t a good start. “A few questions spring to mind, yeah. Things like ‘have you completely lost your mind?’, and ‘is there a reason I shouldn’t just hex you into next week and dump you on the doorstep for the Aurors to pick up?’. Oh, and failing that ‘ _how the fuck do you expect us to live together for a year without killing each other?’_ ”

“No, yes, and with great difficulty,” Malfoy snapped. He met Harry’s eyes finally, looking shaken and tired, but determined. “Look, is there somewhere we can sit down?”

“The living room,” Harry said, frowning. “You’ve been here all afternoon, didn’t you…?”

Malfoy seemed hesitant to answer. His eyes flicked around the hallway, and as there were only two doors and one said ‘WC’ on it, he soon located the living room. Harry followed him in.

The living room was possibly Harry’s favourite room. It was bright and fresh and did a beautiful job of sticking two fingers up to Sirius’ terrible childhood; Harry’s godfather would have rolled on the fluffy green rug _laughing_ to see the house as it was now, he was sure.

Luna and Ginny had been a little more… _modern_ in their choices than Harry would have been, if he could have found the will to give a shit about carpet samples and furniture catalogues. Going to Ikea with them had been an experience he wouldn’t forget any time soon, partially because they’d made him buy half the shop, but also because of the horrifying moment that he caught himself lauding the virtues of ‘Good, Solid, _Quality_ Furniture’ and realised he sounded exactly like his Uncle Vernon. Apparently his relatives’ attempts to Dursley-fy him had been more successful than he’d ever suspected.

So he hadn’t had much say about the squashy blue couch and the cluster of beanbags surrounding it, but it was great when friends came over, and quite a few parties had ended with them all sprawled on the beanbags, rambling about life until the small hours of the morning. Luna had painted silvery birch trees on the walls, so of an evening with a fire lit it almost felt like camping, without the Snatchers and horcruxes and sense of impending doom. Harry kind of loved it.

“Potter, what the fuck is this?” Malfoy said. He honestly looked more confused than anything, and Harry came to the sudden realisation that Malfoy had probably never even seen a beanbag before, let alone sat in one. So Harry flopped down onto the sofa, putting his feet up to ensure there was no room for the other man.

“My living room. Have a seat, Malfoy.” he grinned, gesturing at the cluster of beanbags gathered around the coffee table.

“I am _not_ sitting on those.”

“Well, then unless you want to snuggle up on the couch with me, you’ll be doing a lot of standing over the next year,” Harry said, squinting up at him with one eye shut to help keep him in focus. His head was spinning a bit from finding himself suddenly horizontal, leaving him lethargic and a bit fuzzy around the edges. The pub had definitely been the right call, rather than coming straight home to rip Malfoy’s throat out.

“I imagine _standing_ is the least objectionable thing I’ll have to get used to over the coming year,” Malfoy muttered, looking irritated. “Weasleys everywhere, for example.”

“I’m thinking of having daily family meetings,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. Malfoy had that look about him like he was about to say something vile, which was too bad. Harry was warm and comfortable on the couch; it would be a shame if he had to get up to knock Malfoy out. _Yet, also somewhat satisfying..._ They regarded each other in silence, eyes locked.

“Oh, bite me, Potter.” Malfoy said at length, lowering himself onto a large, armchair shaped beanbag with as much dignity as he could muster. Which turned out not to be much, as the seat more or less forced one to recline. Slouched on it in formal robes looking affronted, Malfoy looked hilarious.

“Buy me a drink first,” Harry deadpanned, staring up at the ceiling to stop himself from laughing. Even without looking, he could hear the sneer on Malfoy’s face as he replied, voice dripping with contempt.

“Why Potter, is the Weasley girl not keeping you busy enough? Considering the _brood_ she comes from you’d think the apple wouldn’t rot far from the-”

“ _Ginny_ is not keeping me _anything_ .” Harry pointed out, trying not to let the conversation derail into an argument, despite Malfoy’s best efforts. “But Luna is a _little_ too open about their sex life, so you could probably find out if you were so inclined.” Harry glanced back over at his new lodger. From the stunned yet slightly intrigued look on Malfoy’s face, Harry could only surmise that Malfoy was indeed that way inclined, in more ways than one. It was odd that Malfoy didn’t know, though; the Prophet had had a field day over their breakup, making a circus out of what, for Harry and Ginny at least, had actually turned out not to be a big deal.

“Huh. Well, I did not see that coming.” Malfoy said speculatively. Harry hadn’t either, but Hermione said the only thing that was surprising about it was Ginny finally noticing that Luna had adored her for years. “Anyway, I’m not here to discuss _inclinations_. I don’t have to answer to you.” Harry had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but he was sidetracked by Malfoy’s next scathing remark. “Unless that’s the reason you’re flaunting the Statute of Secrecy with that Muggle?”

“I’m sorry, did a former _Death Eater_ just bring up the Statute of Secrecy?” Harry asked, sitting up. “No, that is not the reason. It’s complicated. Cecil isn’t a Muggle, exactly.”

“Well, he’s clearly not magical, Potter, so what else could he be?”

“He… well, you know how people can be Muggleborn? ...Oh, don’t even say _‘former Death Eater’,_ ” he added, seeing the sardonic stare that Malfoy was giving him. “And that sometimes people with magical parents are born squibs.” Malfoy raised an eyebrow, silently asking Harry when he would be getting to his point. “Well, squibs aren’t quite Muggles, are they? They can see ghosts, dementors…” Malfoy shivered. “Things like that. Cecil is like a Muggleborn squib. He’s magical enough to see some things that Muggles can’t, but not magical enough to be a wizard. We were moving furniture in one day, and Cecil was passing. He shouldn’t have noticed us, but he just… Ron and George were struggling a bit with a table and he just rolled his sleeves up and started helping us move things inside. He stayed for a cup of tea afterwards, then turned up on the doorstep a couple of days later with a cactus.”

“A cactus?”

“As a housewarming gift.” Harry shrugged, indicating the spiky plant on the window ledge.

“That can’t happen. I’d know if that could happen.” Malfoy shook his head. “You’re full of shit, Potter.”

“Cactuses are a pretty traditional housewarming present actually, I mean you should probably have heard of it…” Harry said, unable to resist. He folded his hands behind his head and yawned. Comfortable or not, he hadn't exactly had a restful night’s sleep on that couch last night. To think he’d been kept up worrying about Malfoy going to Azkaban. The dementors could fucking have him.

“I can’t believe I was naive enough to think that nothing could be worse than prison,” Malfoy groaned, apparently having gone down a similar trail of thought. “I don’t like this any more than you do, Potter. But here we are, stuck with each other. You could at least try not to be a bastard about it.”

“Me? In what universe am I the one being a bastard here, Malfoy?” Harry asked, gaping at him.

“Really? First, you ignored basic courtesies.” Malfoy ignored Harry’s snort of derision. “When you have a house guest, you greet them. You offer them the protection of your roof and hearth. You offer them wine, three times, but they insist on water. Is this sounding familiar…?”

“What the hell are you talking about, Malfoy?”

“My god, Potter, I know you grew up with muggles, but I didn’t know they were _complete_ savages. Has nobody ever taught you how to interact with wizards in the real world?”

Harry shrugged. “I think people were kind of more focused on helping me avoid being murdered,” he said, eyes on his shoes.

Malfoy made a soft sound of annoyance. “I am not your biggest fan, Potter, but even I know you’re capable of more than one thing at a time.”

“Fine, you can have my roof and my wine. Or my water, or whatever. Satisfied?”

“So very far from it,” Malfoy sighed. “Maybe we should just avoid each other.”

“Er, my house isn’t that big,” Harry said, “I don’t think that would work.” He couldn’t spend a year sneaking around his own house, trying not to bump into Malfoy. He was an adult, and he understood now that there was a big distinction between unpleasant and evil. He could handle this.

“Maybe not,” Malfoy admitted, with a bitter laugh.

They sat in silence for a moment, each of them thinking of ways to get through the next year. Harry watched Malfoy out of the corner of his eye. He was frowning and chewing his lip, staring at the beech trees on the wall. Harry was privately a little smug to see that all of Malfoy’s scheming hadn’t taken into account what to actually _do_ for a year. But… even if he hadn’t known exactly what would happen, Harry had admitted a debt, and he did feel like there was one to be paid. They would never get along, but Harry didn’t think he should be in Azkaban either. “What if I move out?” he asked.

He got a look of complete exasperation for his troubles. “Our destinies are bound together for a year and a day, by magic older than memory,” Malfoy said, massaging his temple. “If your residence changes, I will be seized by that bond, and transported to your new home, where the Old Magic will unceremoniously spit me out. From what I read,” he added, “this is not a very pleasant experience, and could cause permanent spell damage to us both. So I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to learn to get along.” Harry murmured bleakly.

“So the rumors are true, Harry Potter _has_ lost his mind,” Malfoy replied, a smirk creeping across his lips. They lasted a full five seconds before they both had to laugh. Malfoy shook his head. “Oh, sweet Salazar, I always knew you were disturbed.”

“Only by that beard you’re growing,” Harry answered, still chuckling.

Malfoy made a bold attempt at removing himself from his beanbag, but his inexperience with man-eating seating arrangements proved to be his downfall. He settled back and fixed Harry with his best Pureblood glare. “As you’re drunk, and so I would clearly win, I will not fight you for the honour of my facial hair.” he said gravely. Harry snickered. Malfoy had a sense of humour when he wanted to, Harry knew, from years of watching him doing impressions for the Slytherins, and making his friends laugh with whispered comments during lessons. He’d just never expected to be on the receiving end of it.

“So what _have_ you been doing all afternoon?” he asked, out of curiosity.

Malfoy hesitated, and Harry let the smile drop off his face. That fleeting moment of peace between them was so fragile, he was afraid to snap it by saying the wrong thing. Just as he was about to change the subject, Malfoy spoke. “...I took a nap.”

“A nap?”

“I haven’t been sleeping very well, if you must know,” Malfoy admitted grudgingly. “For the past two years. So yes, I _napped_ when I had the chance.”

“No shit,” Harry said, looking at the dark circles under his eyes, and thinking of the way Malfoy had shuddered when he mentioned dementors. “Malfoy… where did the ministry keep you for the past two years?”

Malfoy’s face went studiously blank, like a shop front with its shutters down. “I’m not going to talk about that,” he said, suddenly crisp and formal. “Don’t ask again.”

“Ok,” Harry said softly. “No problem.”

“There was only one bedroom made up,” Malfoy said, still sounding distant and guarded. “So you may want to _scourgify_ your sheets or something, if you think I might have  _contaminated_ them.”

“Why would I think that?” Harry asked. It was kind of weird to think that Malfoy had been sleeping in his bed, but he didn’t see why it would be such a problem.

Malfoy laughed harshly. “Oh, whatever, Potter. Look, I’ll just summon Smudge and have her bring my belongings over and prepare a bedroom. Smudge!”

They both waited expectantly for the house elf to appear. A minute passed, and then two.

“There’s a Fidelius on the place, are you sure she can…?”

“Will you think, Potter? She got me in here in the first place,” Malfoy was surprisingly agitated, attempting once again to extract himself from the beanbag. Harry stood and offered him his hand. Malfoy didn’t look terrible pleased about it, but there were very few options open to him. He ignored the hand, choosing to wrap his fingers around Harry’s wrist instead, and let him pull him up. Malfoy’s arms was thin and bony under his robes, when Harry grasped his forearm in the same way. Never having actually been so physically close before without somebody ending up needing a healing spell, it felt a little awkward, and Malfoy stepped away as soon as he was on his feet, clearing his throat. “Thanks,” he mumbled, before calling his house elf again. “Smudge?”

There was a tap at the window. Harry squinted at the owl that fluttered there. “That’s…”

“A DMLE owl, I’ve had enough of them in the past two years to know,” Malfoy said, frowning. He crossed to the window and threw up the sash. The owl held out it’s leg to him, and took off as soon as the letter had been removed. Malfoy tore it open and raked his eyes over the text, looking angrier with every word. Finally he all but threw the letter at Harry. “They are _not_ getting away with this.” he said, trembling with anger.

 

_Dear Mr Malfoy,_

_We understand you have recently attempted to summon your house elf, Smudge._

_Unfortunately this elf is currently being detained by the DfRCM, as part of a joint investigation with the DMLE into the aiding and abetting of the escape of a fugitive._

_We apologise for the inconvenience, but you will have to make do without your elf while she is helping us with our investigations._

_Sincerely,_

_John Dawlish, DMLE_

 

Harry read it twice to make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding somehow. “They can’t do that, can they? How can they arrest a house elf for doing what it was ordered to do?”

“She,” Malfoy said automatically, pacing. “They can't. I'm not letting them,” he shook his head, “This is about me. This is them trying to save face after what I did, they can’t have it looking like I’m _too_ comfortable. I’m going down there, and I am going to raise _hell._ ” he snarled. Before Harry could say anything, Malfoy was out of the living room and on his way to the door. Harry hesitated in the living room doorway, some small part of him thinking that this could all be about to be over with, if Malfoy crossed the threshold. But there _was_ a debt, he’d admitted it, and he couldn’t let Malfoy throw away his opportunity for a second chance without thinking about it. Fucking hero complex.

“Malfoy, wait,” he shouted, and the other man turned to sneer at him, one hand reaching for the handle of the front door.

“Make me,” Malfoy said, slowly and maliciously, eyes _daring_ Harry to try and stop him, body coiled to run if Harry tried to grab him. Pretty sloppy, for a pureblood, to forget that they were _wizards_.

“ _Petrificus totalis,_ ” Harry said, pulling his wand out of his pocket. Malfoy tipped over slowly, then dropped the rest of the way to the floor, arms locked to his sides, legs stuck together. Harry crouched next to him. He was breathing heavily, grey eyes boring into Harry with absolute rage. “If you leave, you’ll be going straight to Azkaban,” Harry said, trying to keep his voice level and calm, his auror training kicking in. “We’ll owl Hermione, she’ll know what to do. We’ll get Smudge out. Can I trust you not to go storming out of the house if I unbind you? Blink twice for yes. Good, ok. _Finite.”_

Malfoy didn’t speak at first. He took his time working the stiffness left by the spell out of his arms and legs, before rolling his neck, exposing a long, pale throat. Harry reflected that for someone who could be so vicious, he was incredibly fragile-looking. Like an ice sculpture of some fierce creature.

“And why would Granger help me?” Malfoy asked.

“Because she believes you’re a good guy deep down, and we can make you into a model citizen through the Power Of Friendship,” Harry said matter-of-factly.

“I- Are you fucking with me, Potter?”

“Yep,” Harry offered him a small, wry smile. “To be honest I’m not sure if Hermione would piss on you if you were on fire, but she _does_ have an interest in elfish welfare.”  


 

* * *

 

They were sitting in tense silence some hours later when Harry’s fireplace roared into life, and Hermione’s face appeared in the green flames.

Malfoy abandoned all dignity to scramble out of his beanbag chair and kneel by the fireplace. Harry joined him.

“Harry!” she said, “I’ve firecalled everybody I could think of, this is an absolute disgrace. I’m composing several long letters to the Ministry, and I’m going to keep fighting this.” She had that determined look on her face that meant that Harry should probably get in touch with Ron, and tell him to make sure she remembered to sleep. The one she had on her face leading up to exams in school, when Harry and Ron would find her sleeping in the common room, and carefully spell the drool stains off her books before they woke her.

“Granger, I-”

“Don’t thank me,” Hermione sniffed, “I’m doing this for poor Smudge, not you. If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Hermione, that’s not fair…” Harry mumbled. Malfoy looked like she’d punched him again.

“No, what’s not fair is a house elf being incarcerated for their owner’s crimes,” Hermione said. “But anyway, there’s no way they’ll be able to actually charge her. It would be laughed out. They can still detain her for up to two weeks though, since the case involves a Death Eater. But my contacts are digging, we’ll get her out sooner than that.”

“Thanks, Hermione,” Harry said. He looked over at Malfoy and nodded towards the fireplace.

“Er, right. I appreciate your efforts, Granger.” he said. Hermione still wasn’t very impressed with him, but she softened a little after that.

When she was gone, Harry turned to him. “Did you bring anything with you? Clothes, or anything?”

Malfoy gestured at himself. “Only my court robes,” he said.

“But you’ve got normal clothes on as well, yeah?”

“Normal clothes?”

“You know,” Harry said with some trepidation. “Trousers, a t-shirt?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Potter,” Malfoy said. “I, unlike some, am a true wizard. I don’t do anything as crass as wearing muggle clothes under my robes.”

Harry briefly wondered whether a ‘true wizard’ was anything like a true Scotsman, but thinking about Malfoy’s underwear situation was disturbing to say the least, so he decided it was almost certainly best not to speculate. “You’re not going to like this,” he said, “But I can lend you some clothes.”

“I haven’t really got much choice, have I?” Malfoy sighed. “For tonight and tomorrow at least.”

Harry regretted offering pretty much as soon as he opened his wardrobe. After half an hour of intense scrutiny and criticism, Malfoy finally managed to find what he called the ‘least objectionable’ pair of pyjamas, along with Harry’s best jeans and a sort of jumper thing with a zip. Harry had a suspicion that Malfoy wasn’t terribly familiar with buttons, since he’d seemed interested in a few shirts before declaring that the jumper would do. Harry went to sort a bedroom out while Malfoy got changed. He paused on the landing, uncertain, for a moment. Harry’s room was on the first floor, and he wasn’t sure if he should put Malfoy on the second or not. He hadn’t really been using that floor, though, so it would require more sorting out. He decided on Regulus’ old room, thinking it was sort of fitting. Neville had stayed over not so long ago, so it was already tidy, it just needed a few freshening charms, and for him to move the sheets and blankets out of the ottoman and onto the bed, which he did with a few waves of his wand.

When he turned around, Malfoy was in the doorway, wearing Harry’s pyjamas and carrying his robes over his arm. The pyjamas were a little short on Malfoy, so they stopped an inch or so short of his ankles; the food at Hogwarts and Molly’s best efforts had never quite made up for the lack of nutrition Harry’d had when he was younger, so he was a little below average in terms of height. He’d never really thought about Malfoy being taller, though.

“There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet,” he said, as they passed each other. Malfoy nodded, and Harry paused on his way out. “Er, good night then?” he said.

Malfoy shrugged, busy folding his robes and examining the room. “Good night, Potter.”

He hadn’t paid much attention before, but back in his own bedroom, Harry could see that Malfoy had been in his bed. It wasn’t made, and his pillow had been folded in half and moved to the other side of the bed. That was sort of annoying. Maybe Cecil had woken him up, or house elves usually made the bed for him.

He had never been so ready for bed in his life when he finally lay down. He unfolded his pillow, and tried to get comfortable. It felt weird knowing Malfoy had been in there. His bedding smelt wrong somehow, a rich warm smell, and he was a little too aware of every little noise that the house made. There were plenty of those; old houses have their ways of letting their aches and pains be heard. Harry didn’t know how to begin to process the day he’d had, and it was a long time before he finally fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of offering a guest your roof is from the Aiel's customs in Robert Jordon's Wheel of Time series.
> 
> The host offering wine and the guest insisting on water is from the Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So erm... Hello! It's been a while. Since my last update I got pretty ill, and ended up needing a VP shunt. Not much fun, but life goes on. I have a magic tube that makes my brain not try to drown itself now. It's nice when that doesn't happen. But barring further illness, I am hopefully going to be back to updating this more frequently. I have a good chunk of the next chapter written, so that one at least should be ready to go soon.

On a scale from zero to just-been-murdered-by-Voldemort, Harry woke up feeling about an eight and a half.

“Eurghhhh,” he said, and fumbled on his bedside table for his glasses.

The arrival of the Daily Prophet didn’t help much, and Malfoy had used the last of his mouthwash - the spearmint kind he liked that nowhere ever seemed to have in stock - so by the time he stomped into the kitchen and threw the newspaper onto the table in front of Malfoy, he was in a foul mood.

Malfoy was sitting at the kitchen table with his chin resting on the back of his hand, surveying the kitchen impassively. He barely startled when the newspaper thumped against his placemat, but he tilted his head as he glanced down at it, looking perplexed.

“Is that really what my beard looks like from that angle? Good grief, I’m amazed I wasn’t convicted on the spot for crimes against facial hair.” he said bitterly, scratching at his chin.

In an entirely predictable turn of events, Harry had once again managed to make headlines; a picture of him in the courtroom, and one of Malfoy alongside it, took up the front page. WAR HERO HARBOURING FUGITIVE DEATH EATER, it declared.

 Rita Skeeter may have moved on to telling her tall tales in romance novels after being sued by the Dumbledore estate, but plenty of other reporters just like her had sprung up. Opportunists who cared more about what would sell than what was true. Anyone who had been in that courtroom would know that Malfoy’s plan was obviously nothing to do with him. Apparently saving the world was old news to the press these days, and lately everything he did was somehow sinister or a sign of instability.

 It was almost funny. If he and Ginny had stayed together and (Merlin forbid) lived heterosexually ever after, he thought he might have gotten away with a few more years of wedding speculation and baby rumours, but as things were he supposed there were only so many “SPOTTED: Harry Potter buying milk” articles the Prophet could print before they had to sensationalise a bit.

 Harry snatched the paper out of his hands. “Is that seriously all you have to say for yourself?”

 Malfoy gave him a long, flat stare, as though not wanting your whole life plastered on the front page of the Prophet for the whole wizarding world to see was the most trivial thing he’d ever heard. “Oh, of course. I’m terribly sorry to have damaged your reputation, Potter.”

 “That’s not- as if I give a shit about that!” Harry dropped the Prophet into the bin, and cast a quick finite incantatem and diffindo on it, lest he have to obliviate another bin man. He looked at Malfoy, who was watching him with one eyebrow raised. “Look, I’ve spent my whole life trying to get them off my back, and for once I was actually getting somewhere with that. Quitting the ministry was always going to be bad enough, yeah, but now you’ve come along and made it so much worse.”

 “Oh, fuck off Potter,” Malfoy rolled his eyes, “I have been doing my level best not to make this any harder than it needs to be, but come on. You are so full of shit. ‘Oh, poor Harry Potter, I want to be normal but I’m just so _fucking heroic_ ’. Ever since you got to Hogwarts you’ve been constantly seeking attention.”

 “What?” Harry actually couldn’t believe his ears. “All I’ve ever done is try not to attract attention.”

 Malfoy gave a short, bitter laugh. “First year, there’s a bloody troll loose in the school and you and Weasley decide that no, you don’t need to tell a teacher that Granger might be in trouble - a couple of eleven year-olds who’ve been studying magic all of five minutes are way better equipped for a rescue mission.”

 “That’s not how it happened, there wasn’t time to-”

 “Second year,” Malfoy interrupted. “You fly a motorcar to school.”

 Harry sniggered.

 “What?”

 “Did you seriously just say ‘motorcar’?”

 “What? You did crash a motorcar into the whomping willow.”

 “It’s just that nobody has called it a ‘motorcar’ for about a century,” Harry said, lip twitching. “Anyway, that was because your house elf stopped us getting into platform 9 ¾.”

 “And you expect me to believe that nobody would have noticed if Harry Potter didn’t make it to Hogwarts? That the rest of the Weasleys, or Granger for that matter, wouldn’t notice you didn’t get on the train?”

 “Well, no, but we had to-”

 “Had to what? Did you think Dumbledore would just say ‘Sorry boys, you didn’t ride the train so you can’t come to school this year’? You just wanted to arrive in style. Now, do I need to mention whatever ridiculous stunt got you put into the hospital wing at the end of third year, or the whole Triwizard debacle, or you and the whole of Gryffindor deciding you were too special to follow the rules in fifth year, or for that matter running around the castle, slicing people’s chests open because you’re Harry Fucking Potter and you can do what you like with no consequences?”

 “THAT IS NOT HOW THAT HAPPENED!” Harry almost dragged him out of the house by his hair right there and then. Malfoy had that look about him again, like a spitting cobra poised and waiting to spew venom… if it felt threatened. He hesitated. “You were about to use an unforgivable on me.”

 “Not my finest moment, but do you have any idea the kind of pressure I was under?” Malfoy looked away, jaw grinding. “I was… hurting, and you were the very last person I would have wanted to see me at my weakest. I was crying, for Merlin’s sake.” he took a deep breath. “I wanted to make you hurt, to punish you for seeing that. So I lashed out, and I used a spell that would do that,” he sighed, “The difference, Potter, is that you could have killed me. Would have killed me, if Snape hadn’t shown up. At least I knew what I was casting. I’ve seen what sectumsempra can do if there’s nobody around to cast a counter-curse and it’s… not pleasant.”

 Harry lowered himself into a chair, not sure what to say. He’d expected a blazing row, and Malfoy storming out of his life and into Azkaban, not this bizarre little heart-to-heart.

 “I’m not proud of it,” Malfoy added, tracing the grain of the table with his fingers. “If it’s any consolation, I doubt I’d have actually been able to cast it.”

 Harry thought about Amycus Carrow writhing in pain after Harry had cast crucio on him, and the prospect of Draco Malfoy of all people being less capable of that kind of hatred than him. “It’s not, really,” he said.

 “Didn’t think so.” Malfoy answered, head bowed.

 “I regret it too, you know,” Harry said. “If I could take it back, I would.”

 “Well, you can’t,” Malfoy said. He raised his head, expression carefully neutral. It was as though he’d packed all of his emotions neatly away in a suitcase during those few seconds he’d looked down. Harry usually had to wrestle with his baggage a while before he could zip it up. “Look Potter, this is pointless. We’re not going to just talk it all out and start actually liking each other. We’re going to have to cooperate with each other to get through this year, but that’s it. We will never be friends.”

 Harry’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t recall ever saying we would.”

 “So it’s settled then,” Malfoy said with a shrug. “We can talk about the finer details after breakfast.”

 “Haven’t you eaten? How long have you been down here?”

 Malfoy gawped at him. “I’m a _guest_ , I would never just help myself to food from somebody else’s kitchen,” he shook his head, “Some of us weren’t raised by barbarians.”

 “Oh yeah, that’s right; they were raised by Death Eaters instead.” Harry rolled his eyes, getting to his feet. “Right, you make some toast and we’ll have bacon butties.”

 He flipped open the bread bin on the way to the fridge.

 “Why can’t your elf do this? There was an elf that came with this house, mother told me.” Malfoy had managed to find the bread, and was examining two slices with a brooding expression. “I’d have asked to borrow it last night, but-”

 “Kreacher’s gone,” Harry said. He fished around in a drawer for his spatula, and gestured towards the toaster. “Use that, it won’t bite you.”

 “Gone?” Malfoy asked, eyeing the appliance dubiously.

 “Yup,” Harry placed his saucepan on the hob. “It wasn’t a good fit. I wasn’t comfortable letting him do everything for me, and he wanted me to behead him and stick him on the wall when he… nevermind. I didn’t really want a House Elf, and I wasn’t the kind of master he wanted, so Hermione made some enquiries with the House Elf Relocation Service, and there was was an elderly woman looking for an elf. Pureblood family, very bossy, very traditional. It was love at first sight… or something. Anyway, it worked out happier for all of us.”

 He hadn’t expected Malfoy to approve, but neither had he expected the look of utter shock and outrage. “What the hell, Potter? You don’t just _give_ house elves away.”

 “Well, I did.”

 “You know technically, he belonged to _my_ family.” Malfoy said bitterly.

 “I don’t remember seeing your name on Sirius Black’s will.” Harry said, pointing at him with the spatula. “But I definitely remember your aunt murdering him, so maybe you don’t want to start talking about family.” Malfoy opened his mouth to speak, but Harry cut him off. “Look, Malfoy. You were right. We’re stuck with each other, so…” he shrugged,an flipped a rasher of bacon. “We’re not twelve anymore; you’re not the worst person I’ve ever met, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the worst person you’ve ever had to live with.”

 “Too soon to tell.” Malfoy muttered, examining the toaster. Harry thought he might even have seen a smile for a split second. “I put the bread in the holes, what happens next?”

 Harry leaned over and pushed the button down. “Give it time,” he said.

 

* * *

 

 

Hermione arrived as they were eating, arms piled high with books and folders, which she promptly passed to Harry.

“Iff all diff whirly neffeffry?” he asked, half a bacon butty gripped between his teeth.

“Of _course_ Harry, we can’t build a case without consulting the _literature_.” she said, taking half the stack back. “So, where’s Malfoy?”

“Hiff infe kiffren.”

“Harry, can you _please_ stop talking to me with food in your mouth.” Hermione huffed.

 _What am I supposed to do when I'm holding a bacon butty and she shoves a pile of books at me_? Harry thought, somewhat uncharitably. He gestured with his head for her to follow, and led her downstairs. Hurriedly, he put Hermione’s things down on the table and snatched the remains of his sandwich out of his mouth.

“Hermione brought her library,” he said.

“Well, we can’t be expected to build a case for Smudge without consulting the literature, Potter. Honestly.” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Exactly what I told him,” Hermione said, and Harry found himself on the receiving end of a disapproving frown from both of them. It was extremely disconcerting. The first time the two of them had ever agreed, and it just had to be mutual disapproval of him.

 “Unbelievable,” he growled, and left them to it to make a cuppa, by which time they were in a deep discussion of legal precedents and obscure ministry statutes that was more or less lost on him. He got a ‘Potter’ and a ‘Thanks, Harry’ for bringing tea, but that was about it, so he left them to it and went to the living room to give Cecil a call. Without early intervention, he was likely to sulk for _weeks_ at being turned away on the doorstep.

 After three rings, there was a click and Cecil’s crisp voice came from the handset. “4291, Cecil speaking.”

 “Hey, Ces.”

 “Harry?”

 “Yeah, I’m sorry I couldn’t invite you in yesterday. It’s a bit of a complicated situation.” Harry coiled the phone wire between his fingers, bracing himself. Cecil could be a bit… dramatic.

 “Oh, not to worry, I understand.”

 Well, that was easier than expected. “You, er- you do?”

 “Yes, yes, of course, Ron explained everything,” Cecil said, “I’m sure moving your new paramour in is keeping you quite busy! Boxes to unpack, furniture disputes to settle, romantic nights in with a bottle of wine, and of course there’s also the old…”

 _Paramour?!_ Harry held the headset away from his ear to preserve his sanity, knowing with absolute certainty that some twee euphemism was about to follow. Stuff nine years of friendship, and so what if he’d saved Harry’s life once or twice? As soon as he got off the phone he was going to hunt down Ron Weasley, and kill the bastard.

 “...Harry? … Harry are you still there?” Came a faint voice from the handset.

 “Yeah, sorry Ces, I was just… look, Ron was just having a joke, that’s all. Malfoy and I we aren’t… I mean, we are definitely not…” he sighed. Better make this abundantly clear. “We are not, never have been, and never will be shagging, alright?”

 “Alright.”

 “Right, that’s settled then. So, er-”

 “If that’s how you want to play it, that’s ok,” Cecil cut him off, “But I’ll have you know I’m a man of the world, Harry. I’ve been to boarding school. You’ll get no judgement from me.”

 “Honestly Ces, it’s really not like that. You have no idea how _not_ like that it is.”

 “You can trust me, you know.” Cecil added, a petulant tone to his voice.

 “I know I can Ces. Look, maybe we should talk about this in person. I need to get a few things sorted out here, but I’ll give you a call next week?”

 “Fine, Fine… Mum’s the word, Harry. I shan’t tell a soul.”

 Harry closed his eyes and dug deep inside for the strength not to lose his patience. “Goodbye, Cecil.”

 “Bye, Harry.”

 Hermione poked her head around the door a few moments later.

 “I’ve got to go to work, but we’ve made some headway today.” She said, zipping up her coat. “I just have a bit more-“

 “-Reading to do.” Harry finished fondly, and he walked over to hug her. She squeezed him tightly in return.

 “Are you going to be alright, having Draco here?” She asked.

 Harry blinked. “You spend twenty minutes with him and he’s _Draco_ now?”

 “How naive do you think I am, Harry?” She said, frowning. She swept her hair out of her face. “He’s been polite to me, and he clearly genuinely cares what happens to Smudge, so he’s earned a little courtesy. Using his name _does not_ mean he’s earned my trust.”

 Harry turned the idea over in his mind, but it was beyond strange to imagine the word ‘Draco’ coming out it of his mouth and not being immediately followed by ‘Malfoy’.

 “What can he really do, Hermione? He’s stuck here for a year, and if he _does_ leave aurors will be on him in seconds. If he wanted to do something to me, he could have done it any time since I got home.” He shrugged. “It’s annoying having him here, but I don’t see the harm.”

 “That’s just it, Harry. We don’t know. I’m going to do some research once we get Smudge released, but a lot of the really deep old magic is passed on orally through the generations. It’s not the sort of thing you can just nip to Flourish and Blotts for.” There was a kind of hunger to her as she said that. It dawned on Harry that Hermione must _hate_ that there was knowledge in the wizarding world that was fenced off to her by the simple fact of who her parents were. “There could be more to all this than we know, so just be careful.”

 “I am _always_ careful.” Harry said. They exchanged the kind of look that only old friends can, one that said that they both knew that Harry was talking out of his arse, but would ignore the fact for now. “By the way, can I borrow your key to the Burrow tonight? I need to sneak in and suffocate Ron in his sleep.”

 “What’s he done now?” she sighed.

 “He told Cecil that Malfoy and I are-” he settled for a crude gesture rather than utter the horror aloud. Hermione was at least polite enough to cover her snicker behind a hand.

 “Oh dear,” she said, not sounding entirely sympathetic to Harry’s cause. “I’m sorry Harry, but I’m afraid I quite like having him around. Besides, you know that Heather will rip you to shreds and sew the pieces into a quaffle if you kill him during the quidditch season.”

 “Why does Heather sound more invested than you?”

 Hermione drew herself up into quite a good imitation of Heather’s intense,arms-folded stare. The kind she gave when she heard that Ron had deviated from his meal plan. “I’m just the girlfriend, Harry. _She_ is his _Quidditch Coach._ ”

 Laughing, he showed her to the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last 4 digits of Cecil's phone number are a reference to this wonderful gag in One Foot In The Grave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0tiNwOpZ68
> 
> The main character's neighbour has been asking if anyone has seen his missing dog all episode, and I think it's quite near the end that this happens. The main character is very stressed and has JUST sat down when the phone rings... possibly made funnier by the fact that "dog and bone" is rhyming slang for "telephone".


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angsty chapter is angsty~ I feel like there should have been more jokes, but there just wasn’t room for them.
> 
> So much dialogue in this chapter (and other chapters, let’s be honest), but I love writing dialogue, and frankly these boys have an awful lot to talk about and work through together if they’re gonna build a connection. (Which they are!)

Despite their agreement that they couldn’t avoid each other forever in the same house, Harry barely saw Malfoy after that first awkward meal together. It was kind of a relief. Malfoy stayed in his room mostly, only coming down when Portia or Hermione came to discuss Smudge’s case. Harry got into the habit of leaving out a little extra of anything he cooked for himself, and it would usually disappear shortly afterwards. Clothes and toiletries mysteriously depleted also. It was more like having Borrowers than having another human living with him, all in all. Which was fine. It was great.

Hermione probably saw more of the git than Harry did, that week; he didn’t have anything much to contribute to those meetings, and he knew she wouldn’t have taken kindly to him ‘guarding’ her, so he mostly kept out of the way for the duration. Within earshot, of course. He wouldn’t want to miss it if it sounded like she might punch him again.

Malfoy was coming up the stairs as Harry was coming down once, carrying a plate of cottage pie. They’d edged past each other sideways, apologies and mumbled thanks echoing through the house before they both hurried away. Malfoy didn’t seem to be getting much sleep; the bags under his eyes hadn’t improved much, and Harry sometimes heard him moving around at night as he lay awake himself after a bad dream.

Harry himself was… adrift. Now that his exit from the Aurors was confirmed, Hermione seemed to have appointed herself as his careers advisor, and was owling him leaflets and cuttings of job adverts from the Prophet on a daily basis, when she didn’t hand deliver them after meetings with her latest SPEW recruit. Nevermind that she knew full well he had a subscription to the Prophet. He had no idea what his next step was, and the dozens of suggestions littering his desk after just a few days only left him feeling overwhelmed, and not at all in the mood to fill in application forms.

It was supposed to be easy, now Voldemort was gone; he never had to see the Dursleys again, he wasn’t a fugitive living in a tent, nobody was trying to kill him… He was supposed to be happy now, and finally living a normal life. Not feeling listless with a hardly-seen Malfoy rattling around his house like a ghoul. Sometimes he thought that he’d spent so much time having something or someone to fight that he didn’t have a clue how to just… be. It was why he’d joined Auror training in the first place, but it had been like trying to hold onto the war. Which was pretty fucked up, when he thought about it.

He was thinking about it late one night about a week into things, when he gave up on sleep and wandered into the living room, only to find Malfoy sitting on the couch by the light of the lamppost outside, knees drawn up and a cup of tea held under his chin.

“Oh,” Harry said, pausing in the doorway.

“Oh,” Malfoy agreed, yawning. “Sorry Potter, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t, I didn’t know you were up. I was just… restless.” Harry shrugged. “I can leave, if it bothers you.”

Malfoy said nothing for a long moment, staring into the mug he held in front of him. “The kettle just boiled,” he said finally, looking more resigned than anything. “Misery loves company, or so I hear.”

A few minutes later, he was sitting on the couch, drinking tea with Draco Malfoy. It was three in the morning, according to the mantlepiece clock, and the whole situation had a strangely dreamlike quality. It felt different somehow, sitting here in the light of the fire Harry had conjured, than arguing with him in the kitchen in the light of day, or passing each other on the stairs. More raw, somehow; like catching him crying in Myrtle’s bathroom. Malfoy wasn’t supposed to see Harry shaken and sleepless after nightmares, and Harry wasn’t supposed to see him exhausted and haunted, staring into the fire.

“You don’t sleep either,” Harry said, not quite a question.

Malfoy was silent a long time, his face still as shadows from the fire played across it. Finally, he turned to look at Harry, studying him for a moment before he spoke. “No, Potter, I don’t sleep.”

“Nightmares?”

“Sometimes.”

“Oh.”

Malfoy sighed, and shifted so he was facing Harry. “Sometimes I can’t go back to sleep after them,” he said. He shifted his grip on his mug, looking uncertain about continuing. “...and sometimes, I can’t get to sleep at all because my mind is just going over and over things. Or because I know as soon as I close my eyes…”

“Yeah, me too.” Harry said. They sipped in silence for a few minutes. They had taken such different paths yet they were both paying for it in much the same ways, apparently.

“Do you remember me trying to make friends with you, on our first day at Hogwarts?” Malfoy asked, eyes on his tea.

Harry snorted, relieved to be broken out of his reverie. “Yeah. Hard to forget you insulting everyone I was with, and then expecting me to shake your hand.”

It was surely part of that strange 3am magic, that Malfoy only smiled to himself at that, looking a little sheepish.

“I was a cocky little shit back then,” he said.

“Back then?”

“Well, I’m not so little any more,” Malfoy said with a shrug and a small, slow smile. “And I can assure you that the events of our late teens have been quite a humbling experience for me.” He became a bit more thoughtful. “I couldn’t understand what I’d done wrong at the time, you know. I think, in my head, I was rescuing you from social suicide. I thought you were incredibly ungrateful and rude. Plus, you probably won’t believe this - I scarcely can now - but it was always such a _thing_ growing up, that we were the same age. It was always ‘ _when you go to Hogwarts, and become friends with Harry Potter…_ ’, as if it were a given. Father was furious when he heard that I’d messed it up.”

Harry nearly choked on his tea. “Lucius Malfoy wanted _us_ to be best mates?”

Malfoy laughed softly. “Well at the time, vanquishing one of the most powerful wizards in Britain at the grand old age of _fifteen months_ was pretty impressive. People thought you’d grow up to be a new Merlin. Father was quite determined that once we started Hogwarts and Dumbledore brought you out from wherever it was you were hidden away, I should do my utmost to ingratiate myself. Of course, I told him you weren’t all that all through first year in my letters.”

“I can just imagine an eleven year old Draco Malfoy writing angry letters to his father,” Harry said, feeling the corners of his mouth tug into a smile in spite of himself. “Dear Father, Harry Potter is a speccy git…”

“I believe my exact words were ‘scrawny, scruffy, and distinctly average’.” Malfoy said speculatively, tapping his fingers on his chin. He still hadn’t shaved the beginning beard that grew there. It was patchy and uneven, as many nineteen year old’s beards are. Harry didn’t really know him, of course, but it seemed distinctly unMalfoylike to be so unkempt.

“Father began to have his doubts when we met you in Flourish and Blotts,” Malfoy continued, “but he still insisted I try out for quidditch that year. He thought I might be able to build bridges if we had a hobby in common. The two youngest quidditch players, you know. Personally, I saw it as an opportunity to show you up.”

Harry put his empty mug down. “Malfoy, I’ve always wanted to know, and since it doesn’t really matter now…”

“No, Potter, my father didn’t buy my way onto the team with those brooms,” Malfoy had clearly had this conversation before. “I flew my way in just like everyone else. You’ve flown against me, surely you know I was capable. Father could afford the best equipment, so we used the best equipment. There’s nothing wrong with that is there, Mr Firebolt?”

Ok, Malfoy had him bang to rights there. “Maybe we should’ve had to use school brooms, even the playing field.” Harry said.

“Potter, I would have quit the team before I would have agreed to ride a _cleansweep_.” Malfoy sniffed, but there wasn’t much malice in it. “It would be interesting to see which of us was the better flier on the same broom, though.”

“Definitely me,” Harry said, yawning.

“Probably,” Malfoy said, “But only because I’m dreadfully out of condition. Do you still fly?”

“Not really. We have a little flyabout at Weasley family gatherings, but Ron plays for Falmouth now, so between matches and practice he’s usually pretty sick of flying by his day off.” Harry thought of Heather, and smiled. “His coach is a little… intense, too. Rest days are very important apparently, and she’d be furious if he injured himself playing for fun.” He shook his head. “Seriously, though, your father wanted us to be friends?”

“He did, honestly.” Malfoy said. He yawned again. “You fucked it up at the end of second year, though. After that you were just the arrogant little shit who cost him a house elf.”

Harry laughed at that. It was beyond bizarre to laugh because Malfoy had made a joke. He stood up suddenly, and went to the sideboard. He must be mad, but Malfoy did seem different, and he cared about his house elf, and… it felt like the right moment. Harry had a feeling he could trust Malfoy, oddly enough. He still didn’t like the situation, but he felt for the first time like maybe he could learn to live with it. “I have something for you,” he said cautiously. “Well, something of yours actually.”

“I was wondering where I put that lifetime supply of felix felicis,” Malfoy said. He was clearly trying to be flippant, but his voice didn’t sound right somehow. Malfoy must know what it was, but Harry suspected that he didn’t want to get his hopes up just yet.

“Do you want this or not?” Harry asked, unlocking the drawer with his wand. He glanced back to see Malfoy watching him carefully. He didn’t look like he even dared breathe.

“What is it?” he asked. Harry held up the Hawthorn wand in answer.

“You’ve had it all this time?” Malfoy asked.

Harry shrugged. “I didn’t know where you were, and I couldn’t be sure it would get to you if I passed it to the ministry. Even for a war hero, the places they were holding Death Eaters awaiting trial were top secret information.”

Malfoy laughed, a harsh and bitter sound. “I don’t really know where they kept us, either. Some other house they seized from a Death Eater, I think, but nowhere I’d been before. I’m not even sure what part of the country it was. Nothing but moorland all around, I never want to see another fucking moor again if I can help it.”

“The ministry has been all over Malfoy Manor,” Harry said. “Something about there being dangerous residual magic, curses and things, from Voldemort living there. Is all your stuff there? I could talk to Kingsley.”

“Not all of it, but most. They let us write a list of things we wanted from the manor. It was all checked over by cursebreakers before we could have them, every last sock or photograph.”

“Was it… did they treat you alright?”

“As well as you might expect. It was just my mother and I, and Smudge. Nothing and nobody in or out, except food supplies and occasional Aurors come to interview us. They let us keep Smudge with us because neither of us could cook, and mother’s wand was snapped during the battle. I don’t think they wanted the legal complications of figuring out what to do with her, either.” Malfoy stared at the wall as he spoke, arms folded. His knuckles were white, and he laid each word carefully after the next. Harry remained perfectly still, lest Malfoy remember who he was, everything they had done to each other, and clam up. _You were the last person I would have wanted to see me at my weakest_ , he’d said. “My letters to Portia went through them, and we had one hour long meeting face to face before the trial. I’m afraid we didn’t have time for her to fill me in on all of the gossip, so I don’t know much that went on in the past two years.” He glanced up at Harry finally, and his dishevelled appearance began to make sense. “Satisfied?”

“There were dementors?” Harry asked, knowing he should probably leave it but unable to hold himself back from asking. Malfoy nodded slowly.

“I suppose the Aurors have a lot on their plate; chasing down Death Eaters, figuring out who was and wasn’t Imperiused, prosecuting animals like the Carrows and Greyback… They couldn’t waste too many resources on low-threat prisoners like us. I suppose with the way they were multiplying during the dark lor-” he grimaced, “During the war, that the one thing the ministry isn’t short on is Dementors.”

“So that’s-”

“Why I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards? Why I haven’t managed to drag up the energy for a good old row with my school nemesis? Why I’m here, of all the damn places in the world?” Malfoy was still for a long time. His eyes moved over the silvery branches painted on the wall, watching the light from the fire dance on them. His mouth moved occasionally, as if he was rolling a thought around in his mouth, contemplating releasing it.

Harry waited, but he suspected here was something Malfoy couldn’t or wouldn’t tell him, the crux of why he’d made such a desperate attempt to avoid Azkaban. Instead, he walked over and placed the wand in Malfoy’s hand. He lowered it slowly into Malfoy’s open palm in almost a ritualistic way. Reverential. This wand had saved his life. This wand had killed Voldemort. It was going back to its rightful place.

When that thought crossed Harry’s mind, it was as though a switch had flicked, and something Harry hadn’t even known was there was gone. The ownership of the wand, he suspected. “Freely given,” he whispered. It was a relief to know that winning a wand wasn’t the only way to transfer its loyalty. There was a rightness in that. Something told him it had been possible because there was no part of him that in anyway wanted to keep it. He had wanted it to go back to Malfoy with his whole self, and so it had.

Malfoy’s hand curled around the wand, and he gave it an experimental flick. Out of practice of focusing magic, Malfoy caused the air all around him to crackle with static at first, and Harry felt the hairs on his arms stand up. Then the wand gave a tiny sputter, and began to make smaller, blue sparks from its tip. Malfoy closed his eyes and let out a long breath. When they snapped open again, he met Harry’s eyes with a quiet fire in his gaze. Not aggression, just absolute conviction.

“There were only four of the bastards watching the safehouse, Potter, and they finally let me see my father last month and he’s- I know now, I know, that I can’t go to Azkaban. Knowing what four of those things did to me, what Azkaban has done to my father. What the other people in there have threatened to do to my father… one way or another, I know I won’t survive in there.” His face hardened, “So there you have it Potter. I’m weak. I’m too fucking spineless to face prison, and so I’ve flung myself at your _mercy_.” he spat that last word out like it was poison, and sat there, turning his wand over in his hands.

“Ok,” Harry said.

Malfoy looked up at him, puzzled. “Ok?”

He could practically hear Hermione warning him against this, but he thought of Sirius, of how the dementors by the lake had made him feel, and even of Malfoy’s face when Harry had mentioned about how squibs could see dementors. “If there’s something I can legally do to help your case, I will.” Harry said, shrugging as if it was nothing.

“Potter…” Malfoy said, staring. He searched Harry’s face, as though looking for some sign of a lie or hesitation, but Harry looked back unflinchingly. Finally, Malfoy coughed and looked away. “Maybe there’s something,” he mumbled.

“What is it?”

“Could I… borrow your razor, and maybe some scissors?”

“Malfoy, that’s not exactly the sort of help-“

“Crimes against facial hair, remember? The first step in avoiding Azkaban is not looking like you’ve already been to Azkaban. I read it in Witch Weekly’s tips for Wicked Witches.”

“You do _not_ read witch weekly.”

“Well, not since being under house arrest for two years, magazines are not ‘essential shopping items’ according to the Auror Office. Hey, that’s something else you can help me with. Taking out a new subscription.”

“... I’m regretting this already.”


End file.
